You can certainly get a General Discharge without a court matial. There were a lot of them during this time frame.
Yep, but for officers? Furthermore, you had to accept it as an alternative to a court martial. They couldn't just decide to give you a bad discharge without due process. The other thing that doesn't make sense is hehad a six year committment. A discharge ends your reserve duty. Why would he get a bad discharge while on reserve duty? I know people are saying it is because of his work with VVAW, but I think he would have loved to be the martyr and paint the government as out to get him. I'm not saying this story is impossible, I'm just saying there are too many things which don't add up.